Major residential developments are one of the defining themes of 2014 and squeaking in before the close the year are these two consultations, down the road in Deptford, either side of the Laban Centre.

Creekside East (above) would create two new tall buildings and 249 apartments for rent, next to the Creekside development, which is at last starting to fill up at ground level, with a gym, contemporary furniture shop and nursery helping to fill the units.

Kent Wharf (above) runs alongside Deptford Creek itself and its redevelopment would add another 143 homes to the area, housed in three main blocks.

Although the existing Creekside development looks like an ungainly grey slab from a distance, up close it has succeeded in creating a promising public square, shielded from the busy Creek Road. All it needs now is people to use it.

Creekside square - just add people

Pedestrians coming from Deptford town centre rarely make it past the Laban Centre and no one walking from Greenwich ever bothered negotiating the unforgiving road system to explore Creekside, so if the community at this end of town is going to have a chance of being self-sustaining, it's going to need more residents of its own. Filling these locations with decent residential buildings will help.

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comments:

silburnl
said...

I think the existing Creekside development has submerged the Laban, which is a shame. It used to be very striking (from the DLR particularly) but now it's engulfed by the larger, same colour, blocks of Creekside and just vanishes.

The main issue I see at present is that Creekside has no parking provision so there's lots of cars parking in the streets around the area. Copperas St is dangerously cramped these days (with cars colonising the Laban-side pavement in order to preserve a narrow carriageway for traffic) nd other streets nearby aren't much better. Adding another 500 odd households to the district (plus whatever the Fair Charm redevelopment brings) is only going to make that problem worse.

Of course parking is just an early indicator - demand for schools, health and other social services will follow along in due course.

Many modern developments are being built without parking..you provide parking, people fill it up with cars which are then driven on local roads which are already too busy. The idea of decreasing parking in new developments is to encourage those who can to choose other modes of transport. The problem here is, Deptford's public transport links aren't as good as they need to be to support this aim. In the near future there will be two cycle routes through the area. A cycle superhighway is planned to run from Greenwich to London Bridge, and work on Cycle Quietway 1 is about to start early this year, which will also run from Greenwich but a bit further south through Deptford, to Waterloo. There is a cycle route already which runs north south through Deptford. We should develop cycle provision, improve public transport and make it more affordable, rather than encourage people to bring more private cars into the area.